Take a global view of climate change

The Senate is due to unveil a bipartisan climate and energy package soon. As lawmakers consider it, they must not lose sight of the vital connection between people and nature.

Numerous studies — including last month’s Quadrennial Defense Review by the Penatgon — have detailed how the changing climate could affect people around the world, wreaking havoc on developing nations and punishing the poorest communities.

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But why should Americans care about these far-off communities and the climate threats they face? The fact is, their plight is our plight.

Already, more frequent droughts, floods and other climate-related disasters in the most vulnerable countries are forcing entire communities to flee their homes. Military experts predict that conflicts over shrinking food and water supplies will destabilize already shaky governments and economies around the world.

In an age of globalization, these seemingly remote challenges directly affect Americans, from the prices we pay for coffee or cotton clothing to the families who send sons and daughters overseas to serve in war-torn nations.

Our two organizations have different missions — one aimed at supporting communities, the other at protecting nature. But as we increasingly see the effect climate change is having on our work around the world, we share the goal of protecting the communities, both natural and human, we have pledged to help.

In the South American Andes, for example, decreased rainfall is threatening local communities and their greatest source of income — alpaca wool production. “There is no snow, so there is no water,” Cayetano Huanca, a farmer in Peru, told us. “The springs, wetlands, are not the same as they were.”

We hear similar stories elsewhere. In western Zambia, the rainy season now arrives much earlier, causing floods that leave villagers homeless, hungry and vulnerable to disease. In Cambodia, droughts kill rice fields, pressing thousands of farmers and their families to migrate to already crowded cities.

Tackling climate change is not just about lowering carbon dioxide emissions. It is also about helping people and nature survive its inevitable effects.

The reality is that even if we stopped greenhouse gas pollution today, the fallout from 200 years of industrialization would be felt for generations to come.